Question

How do buddhists believe the earth should be treated?

Answer 1

 A soul means some unchanging individual or collective entity. Buddhism denies that. Instead it is a mental process that goes from life to life. Habits flow from life to life but those change over many lifetimes. The waves of consciousness in this mental process are neither absolutely continuous nor absolutely discontinuous. There is relative unity and relative duality in phenomenal existence. Most seekers mistake the relative unity of higher consciousness as some absolute unity. Buddha did not teach an absence of all duality, he taught of the relative existence of duality. Buddhism is not Hinduism and any teaching that posits that there is no relative existence of duality is Hinduism disguised as Buddhism. Only Nibbana (Nirvana) is without division.  Buddha said that no first beginning of rebirth can be found. Our mental process has been flowing from body to body without a beginning to this process. Buddhism is not a religion that teaches of some Supreme Creator and a beginning point to creation. Even this sphere of galaxies we call the universe is born, dies and is reborn in a grand cycle. We chose our own purpose in life. Some desire material things, others desire power over others. Behind even our supposedly wholesome desires such as generosity it takes insight mindfulness meditation (vipassana) to gain the wisdom to best see the hidden motive of wanting the attention and worship of others for our self for our generosity.  Increasingly selfless generosity is an aid to liberation of course. The ideal choice is the goal of attaining Nibbana (Nirvana) by cultivating ethical behavior and speech, concentration and analytical and intuitive wisdom and when we reach this liberation to help others attain it also. The best documented mostly original teachings of the Buddha are the Theravada Pali Sutta Discourses of the Buddha and their equivalent the Agama in the Chinese Buddhist libraries. Many later teachings are not really that of the Buddha (Mahayana and Theravada).